To combat the effects of wear-intensive or corrosively inhospitable environments, equipment and tools are commonly coated with protective coatings. In particular, hard coatings can be included on equipment and tools to improve wear characteristics and prolong the lifetime of the tools. Such hard coatings include various ceramics or metals. Polymer coatings may be used to protect from corrosion. Typical polymeric coatings can fail at elevated temperatures or under high load, and metal coatings still are lacking in certain aspects such as strength-to-weight ratio.
Therefore, coatings having improved mechanical properties that can protect or enhance the performance of components and tools would be beneficial.